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Digital contact-tracing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspaper coverage in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Governments around the globe have started to develop and deploy digital contact tracing apps to gain control over the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19). The appropriateness and usefulness of these technologies as a containment measure have since sparked political and academic discussions gl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Amann, Julia, Sleigh, Joanna, Vayena, Effy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7857553/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33534839
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246524
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author Amann, Julia
Sleigh, Joanna
Vayena, Effy
author_facet Amann, Julia
Sleigh, Joanna
Vayena, Effy
author_sort Amann, Julia
collection PubMed
description Governments around the globe have started to develop and deploy digital contact tracing apps to gain control over the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19). The appropriateness and usefulness of these technologies as a containment measure have since sparked political and academic discussions globally. The present paper contributes to this debate through an exploration of how the national daily newspapers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland reported on the development and adoption of digital contact-tracing apps during early and after stages of the lockdown. These countries were among the first in Europe to develop apps and were critical voices in the debate of decentralized vs. centralized data processing. We conducted thematic analysis on news coverage published between January and May 2020 in high-circulation national daily newspapers from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A total of 148 articles from nine newspaper companies were included in the final analysis. From our analysis emerged six core themes of the development and adoption of digital contact tracing apps: 1) data governance; 2) role of IT giants; 3) scientific rigor; 4) voluntariness; 5) functional efficacy; 6) role of the app. These results shed light on the different facets of discussion regarding digital contact tracing as portrayed in German-speaking media. This study complements emerging survey data on public perceptions of digital contact tracing apps by providing a better understanding of the ideas circulating in the media ecosystem.
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spelling pubmed-78575532021-02-11 Digital contact-tracing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspaper coverage in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland Amann, Julia Sleigh, Joanna Vayena, Effy PLoS One Research Article Governments around the globe have started to develop and deploy digital contact tracing apps to gain control over the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19). The appropriateness and usefulness of these technologies as a containment measure have since sparked political and academic discussions globally. The present paper contributes to this debate through an exploration of how the national daily newspapers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland reported on the development and adoption of digital contact-tracing apps during early and after stages of the lockdown. These countries were among the first in Europe to develop apps and were critical voices in the debate of decentralized vs. centralized data processing. We conducted thematic analysis on news coverage published between January and May 2020 in high-circulation national daily newspapers from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A total of 148 articles from nine newspaper companies were included in the final analysis. From our analysis emerged six core themes of the development and adoption of digital contact tracing apps: 1) data governance; 2) role of IT giants; 3) scientific rigor; 4) voluntariness; 5) functional efficacy; 6) role of the app. These results shed light on the different facets of discussion regarding digital contact tracing as portrayed in German-speaking media. This study complements emerging survey data on public perceptions of digital contact tracing apps by providing a better understanding of the ideas circulating in the media ecosystem. Public Library of Science 2021-02-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7857553/ /pubmed/33534839 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246524 Text en © 2021 Amann et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Amann, Julia
Sleigh, Joanna
Vayena, Effy
Digital contact-tracing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspaper coverage in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
title Digital contact-tracing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspaper coverage in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
title_full Digital contact-tracing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspaper coverage in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
title_fullStr Digital contact-tracing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspaper coverage in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
title_full_unstemmed Digital contact-tracing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspaper coverage in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
title_short Digital contact-tracing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspaper coverage in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
title_sort digital contact-tracing during the covid-19 pandemic: an analysis of newspaper coverage in germany, austria, and switzerland
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7857553/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33534839
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246524
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